How vividly are you seeing your potential?
Last week, we explored how to feel more at ease during Covid-19 by adopting a ‘resilience’ rather than an ‘endurance’ mindset. This week we’ll consider the impact that our lives slowing down is having on us seeing things more clearly.
When we slow down, things catch up with us. We become more aware. Have you noticed your thoughts, habits and patterns more during the crisis? Not only are we more aware of our conscious mind but also our unconscious mind — many of us are having more vivid dreams at the moment. I often wake up exhausted from the exciting adventure that I have been having during the night which is in sharp contrast to the predictable daily routine during lock-down. Freud believed that dreams were the road to the unconscious; that dreams reveal aspects of ourselves that we might normally repress, our shadow side and that they can also point to our creativity, our potential.
As our awareness is increasing, many of us are keen to share our thoughts, feelings and reflections with trusted others. Grant Thornton recently carried out a survey of the value of coaching in a crisis. They found that one in four senior leaders is getting more value from coaching now than pre-Covid and leaders are currently 90% more likely to want fast and frequent 1:1 coaching now. They want space to reflect upon and evaluate how they can build their own resilience; how they can demonstrate compassion; how best to motivate and lead others virtually in an empowering way; and how to creatively envision and plan for emergence as business confidence starts to return.
Opening up to others through coaching helps to maintain emotional stability and build up a close support network that is essential during turbulent times. I am struck by the number of coaching clients who are sharing their deeper feelings and asking wider questions at the moment. These include:
- Am I in the right job?
- How long do I want to continue to work for at this level of intensity?
- What role can I do in the future that will enable me to maintain better work life integration?
- What is my purpose in life?
I have been exploring the big four questions with clients:
- What have you got in your life that you want?
- What have you got in your life that you don’t want?
- What haven’t you got in your life that you want?
- What haven’t you got in your life that you don’t want?
Many clients have been realising that they have a lot in life already that they want; that there are some aspects of their pre-Covid world that they don’t want back; and that there are a few things that they haven’t got that they would like to add, for example, to spend less time commuting, to move location or to do something different that they have always wanted to do. The most important factor that they do not want is ill health. This has been brought sharply into focus by the pandemic — our health is everything.
We have spent time exploring whether what clients previously thought they wanted to do as an ultimate career role is real or a fantasy. This work has enabled leaders to have clarity about their purpose and long term vision. This either frees them up to channel their energy into re-imagining the organisation and working with others to build a desirable future or, for those who realise that their desired future lies elsewhere, to create an exit strategy that will enable them to realise their dreams somewhere else.
Grant Thornton, April 2020, The surprising value of coaching in a crisis. Unpublished.
